Pathfinder: The New Age of Haven

Episode 38

Of orcs and walls

The group stood around the flying machine, one part fell off when Avin poked it with his stave.

The group that had decided to go with Avin to the wall were silently regretting their decision.

Their paladin friend was now slightly panicky and talking faster than normal.

‘I was looking over a manual and found some instructions….’

The rest of the group were too busy looking at the death-trap to listen, hearing only small snippets

‘Pulling this device will disconnect the autopilot entirely’
‘Left raises the left wing or lowers it’
‘Right raises the right wing or lowers it’
’Don’t land in the sea of storms’

Baylen and Horlamin were saddling up the horses by this point, Maraynn was currently snoring on the cart that had been brought inside the fort, she murmured about the soft kitty tail as baylen unstrapped the horse from the cart.

Avin and his volunteers were now bound ‘safely’ in via the worn leather straps after a lengthy discussion about Ianthe or Charlotte choosing the middle or back seat, judging by the looks of them if there was a bit of a crash they would have been thrown from the contraption almost instantly.

Avin mentioned that it’d probably be helpful to look through the manual one more time before heading off.

After looking at the manual he looked at the paladin and said ‘smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast’ as the men in the room started to turn the cranks. The contraption started to rise through a hole in the tower, climbing higher through the darkness till a slit of light appeared in the darkness. The slit grew larger and Avin realised that they were doors opening wide.

Eventually the machine stopped and then started tilting backwards a little.
Suddenly a rumbling noise started from behind them, after a few seconds they were launched almost directly vertical, slightly aimed at the general direction of the walls.

Baylen and Horlamin were making good time, fairly far from the tower by the point they heard it.
Looking up they saw a trail of fire streaming through the sky.
“I’m not regretting this decision” Baylen quipped as he watched the death-trap throw Avin and his vic-volunteers.

Ianthe was regretting her decision to follow the almost certainly mad wizard.
Charlotte was thinking about Ale and how much she could drink when they were finished with killing all the orcs.
Avin was talking with Ser about how amazing the device was.
Ser was too busy hiding in Avin’s pocket to ‘Enjoy’ the moment, whilst fine with flying, Ser was not all too fine with being launched at hundreds of feet per second via flying deathtrap.

As the plane levelled out Charlotte looked over to see trails of an orc army advancing towards the crossroads.
Avin was too busy trying to make sure they were on course and not about to fly into a mountain or the ground, so far all looked good.

After a while of gliding they could finally see the wall. It was awe inspiring
Either side of them was a storm, lightning and hurricanes bombarded an ocean. They all noted that they were specifically bombarding the ocean, not the areas around the ocean. ‘Sea of Storms, I can see why landing there would be a bad idea’ Avin said to nobody in particular.
The Wall itself was green ‘I guess the book was right’ thought Avin’. It stretched for miles in either direction and was wider than anyone would have thought.
Avin guessed that it was around 2000 feet wide, possibly more.

As they were admiring the area they caught sight of orc camps around the base of the wall.
The group quickly agreed that landing there wasn’t an option and hoped that they would make it to the wall without any problems. It was, of course, at this exact moment that the plane suddenly tilted downwards so that they were now flying towards the central tower at a high pace.

Avin asked the group what they thought the correct course of action would be in case they could see clearer than he could about their trajectory, this was met by silence in the form of fear from Ianthe and indifference from Charlotte, who was far more interested in being down where the orcs were in any case.

When they landed, Charlotte led the way through the orcs, swinging her axe against the first wave, and cleaving several in twain. Unperturbed by the sudden attack from a lone barbarian, the orcs charged in force, only to be met by the sharp, flaming edge of her axe. Ianthe and Avin stood back, the door behind them locked with magic, to watch Charlotte as she cleared a path through the ugly army of rage and teeth. Blood began to run down the sides of the walls, and the orcs and Charlotte were practically wading through blood, guts and corpse. It was as if she was in a trance or possessed. It almost frightened her allies, who would have been worried had they not just witnessed Charlotte single handedly decimating the army that stood between them and their destination. But Charlotte was beginning to tire. Her breath came sharp and ragged, and her swings were slower. One orc managed to graze her with his weapon, distracting her long enough for another to plunge his weapon into her back. Charlotte roared in pain and anger, falling to her knees but still holding off the much diminished hoard. Ianthe stepped up, quick to heal the barbarian, knowing that if Charlotte fell, they might not have the man power to see their mission through. It was just enough to bring Charlotte to her feet, and, backed up by Avin’s magic and Ianthe’s healing, she finished off the last few orcs. If any survived, they had fled. The only remains from the battle was the river of blood that flowed from the stone walls, and the bodies that were piled on either side, burned from Avin’s fire. Charlotte panted, the smell of burning orcs filling her nostrils, then turned to face her comrades. Her eyes were wide, her armour was stained red, and she grinned. “Well that was a good warm-up…”

As they stood there Charlotte covered in blood and grinning like a maniac, half because of the thrill of battle, half because she was pleased with her joke, they surveyed their surroundings.

The door was a little damaged, the Orcs clearly wanted in there so Avin assumed that this would be the one area they hadn’t managed to ransack just yet.
He knocked on the door.

“Is anyone in there? We killed the Orcs”

Avin waited as the door was unlocked and a dishevelled, clearly terrified man peeked through the gap, relaxing almost instantly at the sight of Avin and Ianthe, and then tensing up again at the sight of the grinning maniac standing near them.

“Didyoukilltheorcs?”
The man was staring at Charlotte, shrinking back a little as if trying to will himself to merge into the door.

“Oh, she’s with us and did most of this…”
Avin says, noticing his understandable terror, gesturing to Charlotte, then the Orc bits which were almost floating in the blood, pausing as they surveyed the aftermath again before continuing.
“I prefer a more hands off approach”
He gestures at the charred remains and starts to speak again before the dam breaks and the man bursts out in a cascade of words.

“DIDYOUBRINGANARMYWHEREARETHEYAREYOUAWIZARDTHANKGODYOU’REHERETOHELPHOWDIDYOUGETHERE?”
Avin blinks and looks at the man before responding
“No, but one is on its way. Probably around crossroads keep, Yes I am. Magic flying device that was broken and crashed.”

The man looks at Avin as if he’s an idiot and a saviour all at the same time.
“just the three of you?”
“Four” Ser chimes in from Avin’s pocket.

At this point the man goes into a tirade about how terrible everything is, he’s a scribe on the wall, there’s an Orc army on its way, much larger than people probably realised. The defense of the wall wasn’t working and he couldn’t figure out how to use it.
Avin perked up at the sound of ‘device’ and asked if he could see it.
The scribe checked that everyone was wearing the pendants before everyone was led to a shimmering green field and it was explained that if you touched the field without a pendant you would not enjoy the side effects.